Yes, isolation is a big win. It means I can update the “os” each service resides on independently of each other, so I don’t have to tackle 10 upgrades at once.

It also removes attack vectors and weirdness that happens when a package sees optional dependencies on the system. I.e,, if I need ldap for one thing, I don't have services in other containers trying to work with ldap.

Now every time a package in Alpine gets an update you have to update all 10 containers. Because you will have no way of knowing if that package impacts the security of the service running in that container.

Yes, most docker enthusiasts don't do this. They run a bunch of containers full of security holes.

I expect this to become a hot topic as soon as we will start witnessing data breaches that have outdated containers as their source.

> Now every time a package in Alpine gets an update you have to update all 10 containers. Because you will have no way of knowing if that package impacts the security of the service running in that container.

That's pretty much the baseline when dealing with any software system, whether it's a bare metal install of a distro, a distro running on a VM, or software running in a container.

> Now every time a package in Alpine gets an update you have to update all 10 containers.

All it takes is inheriting the latest version of an image and running docker build prior to redeploying.

I mean, this stuff is handled automatically by any CI/CD pipeline.

If you don't carr about running reproducible containers you can also sh into a container and upgrade it yourself.

Do you also complain about package managers such as deb or rpm because most debian and redhat users run a bunch of software full of security holes?

Software updates is not a container issue. It is a software deployment issue. I mean, when you complain about keeping packages updated you are in fact complaining about the OS running on the base image.

    That's pretty much the baseline when dealing
    with any software system

Exactly. And now instead of one system, he has 11.

    All it takes is inheriting the latest
    version of an image

He is not using "an image". From the article: "After the Alpine Linux 3.9.1 release I noticed the official Docker images had not been updated so I built my own."

    I mean, this stuff is handled
    automatically by any CI/CD pipeline.

He has not describe any CI/CD pipeline involved in his infrastructure. Yet another aspect he has to build.

    you can also sh into a container
    and upgrade it yourself

Into all 10 containers.

I am not adding to the discussion but this was a real fun read. Great points from both sides.

Right, we do daily builds on the CI/CD server at work for just this reason, but I agree, most don't.

    nest of dependencies which is hard to
    explicitly reproduce on other systems

Not if the other system is using the same OS.

A good way is to call your setup script "setup_debian_9.sh" for example, so it is clear which OS it was tested on.